Friday, November 09, 2012

Wednesday, September 05, 2012

I made OLGA bread today. Just like Olga's. I googled the recipe and almost all were identical. I let the dough rest over night in the frig (actually it was about 20 hours). It still was really stretchy and when the recipe said "roll out", it was more like a pizza dough so using my hands to finish it by stretching and twirling in the air helped to get it a little bigger and thinner. Now that I've dipped my fingers into this recipe, I will look at the book "Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day" by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois to see what they suggest. This should make an awesome sandwich this afternoon.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

My friend and baker extraordinaire, Melissa, came over on Friday to give me ANOTHER pie baking lesson. I think I can safely say I conquered my fear of pie crust phobia. The pie crust recipe was from Cooks Illustrated (the no-fail one with vodka) and we used Melissa's delicious home canned peaches, some fresh blueberries and some frozen raspberries. Things I would do different next time: - a little less juice or a little more thickening and remember to take the pie out of the oven RIGHT WHEN THE TIMER GOES OFF. It got just a wee bit brown. Also, I need to buy some of that big crystal baking sugar for the top. We used raw sugar crystals but it just wasn't right. On the upside - it was delicious!! No doubt about that. Thanks, Melissa. You have won a special place in this baker's heart.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

I laid Holly to rest this afternoon. She was in a lot of pain it was the only thing I could do to fix it. It was only going to get worse and I loved her too much to ask her to go through that just to stay a few more days with me.
She was my best pal. Goodbye, my love. xoxo

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Holly, after a great night of partying with the knitting clubHolly is having a good day today. I went to MSU yesterday and talked to Dr. Annear. I listened to all he said and then told him that I would go with pain relief, eye lubrication, and watching until her bad days start to increase. He suggested that at that point I could try oral corticosteroids to increase her appetite and energy again for a while longer. He said if it was his dog, he would have made the same decision. So we didn't even do the chest -xray because it wouldn't have changed the course of her treatment. Right now, she will eat anything in sight and can make it up the stairs faster than me because she knows I have treats stashed upstairs (LOL- sorta like the candy bowl). She has up to 6 months and it wasn't that much longer if I would have chosen chemo/radiation. Some of my knitting group came over last night so she got to sniff in all the knitting bags and everyone fed her a little from their plates (cuz thats ok for her to do now). Actually, she's having the time of her life, which is as it should be. Holly and I are eating, drinking and being merry until further notice.